Hear Pile’s New Song and Burst Into Tears

Pile embody the restless, hardworking DIY ethic about as well as anyone can these days. Their constant touring and bloodletting live performance are the stuff of other band’s mythologies—remember when Krill (RIP) made a “failed concept album” about some kids who realize they are part of a Pile song? With their tenth year of existence and the prospect of making a fifth album looming on the horizon, frontman and founder Rick Maguire decamped from Boston—a city as wrapped up in Pile’s mythos as DC was for Fugazi—to a cabin in Ellijay, Georgia, where he wrote and toured solo across the South. It’s a hermetic gesture that’s actually consistent with the particular adjective whose shape seems to fit the intensity and drama that’s so particular to Pile’s music and ethos: ascetic. That their forthcoming record is called A Hairshirt of Purpose just confirms this suspicion. A hairshirt is a garment of animal hair intended to be uncomfortable, worn as a form a penance.

“Dogs,” the second single from the new record, embodies that self-isolating impulse. It’s a remarkably quiet, restrained work. The slamming crescendos of distorted guitars the band has long since perfected show up as red herrings, a brief contrast from the gently arpeggiated, mellotron washed verses. The dynamic build of the song revolves instead around the violins and violas—a relatively novel addition to the band’s repertoire—which swirl into the track’s second half. It’s a stunning song for band that’s made a career goal of writing and performing the most arresting music possible.